Posts from May 2008

May 20, 2008

There are other non-ingested remedies. Amazon will sell you a refrigeratable eye mask, an aromatherapy inhaler, and a vinyl statue of St. Vivian, said to be the patron saint of the hung over. She comes with a stand and a special prayer.

May 17, 2008

I discovered today that our monthly water bill (from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission) includes a graph of our water usage over the last year. [1] It's pretty fascinating trying to correlate it to events; for example, we used a lot of water last November, the month after Penelope was born.

I think I'm going to experiment with bringing our water usage down to see how much of an effect I can have, now that I'll have this data on a monthly basis.

But here's what I'd like next: a comparison chart (anonymous, of course) to everyone in my neighborhood; my city; my state; and so on. That way, I can see how we compare to other people in our area, and it can become a competition. Give me stats, charts, and graphs showing us how we compare, and you'll see our water usage drop!

May 16, 2008

Speaking of Duffy, Bernard Butler produced a couple of the songs on her album Rockferry. Not only that, but David McAlmont provided backing vocals on two of the songs.

This pleases me greatly, as one of my favorite albums from the 1990s is the album Butler and McAlmont made together, The Sound of McAlmont & Butler. A couple of months ago I was inspired to dig it out of a box and rip it, and I've been listening to it obsessively ever since.

While the two of them created some incredible music separately (Butler in Suede, and McAlmont both solo and with Saul Freeman as Thieves, whose "Unworthy" is one of my favorite songs of all time), I like them best together, where they created two of the best pop songs of the 90s: "Yes" and "You Do".

Li's cosmology ties the ability to speak English to personal strength, and personal strength to national power. It's a combination that produces intense, sometimes desperate adoration. A student named Feng Tao told me that on one occasion, realizing that he had enough cash for tuition to an out-of-town Li lecture but not enough for train fare, "I went and sold blood."